


Youth Sports In Psi Corps

by pallasite



Series: Behind the Gloves [158]
Category: Babylon 5, Babylon 5 & Related Fandoms
Genre: Backstory, Boarding School, Canon Compliant, Essays, Fix-It, Gen, Psi Corps, School, Sports, Teamwork, Teenagers, Telepath culture, Worldbuilding, telepaths
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-29
Updated: 2020-02-29
Packaged: 2021-02-28 01:48:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 807
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22961944
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pallasite/pseuds/pallasite
Summary: You might have missed it, because the book is told from Bester's point of view (and he QUITS his sports team), but youth sports are actually very popular in the Corps.The prologue ofBehind the Glovesishere- please read!
Series: Behind the Gloves [158]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/677654
Kudos: 2





	Youth Sports In Psi Corps

**Author's Note:**

> What is this series? Where are the acknowledgements, table of contents and universe timelines? See [here](https://archiveofourown.org/works/10184558/chapters/22620590).
> 
> If you like _Behind the Gloves_ and would like to send me an email, I can be reached at counterintuitive at protonmail dot com. Do you have questions? Would you like to tell me what you like about this project? Email me!
> 
> I also have an [ask blog](https://behind-the-gloves.tumblr.com/), a [writing blog](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/pallasite-writes), and a "P3 life" Tumblr [here](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/p3-life) with funny anecdotes. :)

You might have missed it, but youth sports are very popular in the Corps. Back at school, Bester himself does fencing and martial arts, and he runs two miles a day.

What we don't see much of, however, because the book is told from his point of view, is how important _teamwork_ is in sports in the Corps, like teamwork is important in _everything_ in the Corps (except to Bester). He runs two miles a day, but he always runs _alone_. Martial arts, to him, is about training mentally and physically to be The Best Psi Cop Ever, and he never joins martial arts team (if there is one).

He joins the fencing team in the Minor Academy _at Bey's suggestion_. We see him on the team, making almost-friends, and we see him quitting the team later after Bey's death, but we never see Bey directly encouraging him to join the team (which is what happened), or do we see him directly teaching Bester how to be a "team player," both in the sport itself and in life (all these lessons happen off-screen in the year that's cut out of the book).

All opportunity that the writers have to show students socializing in _typical_ , or _healthy_ , or _appropriate_ ways in telepath culture is omitted from the book - again, leading to a serious distortion of life in the Corps.

Student sports are very popular. Not all sports are available at school, of course, but there's a variety of sports for students to play/practice, and there's an emphasis on teamwork. It's not just about being the "best" player on your team, but on helping the team _as a whole_. (I already talked about this in my earlier essay: [Bester doesn't play well with others](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14219625).)

There is a competitive aspect of sports, too, in the Minor and Major Academies - teams that perform well enough get to compete against teams from other schools! And for students who _never get to leave campus_ (or rarely get leave, but on short, local trips), it's a REALLY BIG DEAL to travel to another Psi Corps school to compete, or to host students from another school on your campus.

That's what this "fencing semifinals" is all about, and why it's such a big deal for the other students on Bester's team. And that's why even two years later, everyone is still HELLA PISSED OFF at him that he quit the team when Bey died (was killed). They expected him to take Bey's death hard, but as they point out to him, no one expected him to selfishly quit the team and ruin THEIR chances to compete with other schools, and even to quit talking to everyone on the team.

He didn't collapse in an "I'm so hurt, I can't do this alone, I need your support" kind of way - he walked out on _everyone_ and _everything._ And when teammates reached out to him, he pushed them all away (as he does to all his friends after the Black Fox Raid). The whole team.

Yes, when Bey is murdered, he does this. But what readers never get to see is how that behavior impacted everyone else, and why. (It's all from his point of view, and he doesn't care how this impacted anyone - so the book just skips two years and later tells us people were hurt.) We're not even told what "the semifinals" means.

The other students thought Bester was actually their friend - but sadly, his ability to socialize "regularly" was far more fragile. And on a broader scale, his social/emotional problems are not "representative" of typical life in the Corps. More typically, students enter the Corps in their early to mid-teens, and sports gives them a healthy, constructive way to form new relationships and deal with the adjustment challenges they face. They can no longer live with their birth families, so they find new "families" in their sports teams.

This is 98% lost on Bester.

I feel bad about it, both for him and for the readers who never get to see what life in the Corps is usually like.

\-----

Edit: I am now _super confused_ because the section with Bester's fencing team advancing to the semifinals isn't even about fencing. They're doing some Psi Cop training-type "trust-building" exercise, but in the Minor Academy (???), and most of those kids would never be strong enough to be Psi Cops anyway (if any), and they're not his classmates because they're younger than him... basically I have NO IDEA what the writers were getting at here other than mixing up his fencing team with whatever they think "kids do for team-building exercises in the Corps" - which might happen, but that wouldn't be in place of the fencing match. WHAT?

Egads this book is such a mess. At times it's so wrong, it's "not even wrong."


End file.
